Relationships among developmental competency measures and objective work outcomes in a New Zealand retail context

Abstract

Competencies represent an important and popular topic in human resource development. Despite this popularity, a divide exists between practitioner approaches to developmental competency measures and the empirical scrutiny of such approaches. However, the scarce empirical studies on competency measures have begun to bridge this gap. In the present study, behavioral competency ratings and objective outcome measures were collected from 118 entry-level employees in a retail organization in New Zealand. A correlational design was applied to data in this study and, with the use of canonical correlation analyses, meaningful relationships were observed among competency measures and objective work outcomes. Such relationships are presented as being practically useful when making decisions about weighting certain competencies over others for developmental purposes.